Hopeless
by Maura Maud Jadeit
Summary: How can you get over someone when you have an eidetic memory? Written for hotchxreid promptmeme.


**Title: **Hopeless

**Warnings: **T/PG-13 (profanity)

**Pairings: **Hotch/Reid

**Summary: **How can you get over someone when you have an eidetic memory? _Written for hotchxreid promptmeme._

**Word count**: ~4800

**DISCLAIMER**: The Mark Gordon Company, ABC Studios and CBS Paramount Network Television own Criminal Minds. I just took them out to play and I promise to put them back when I'm done. I also don't own anything else you can recognize from other places.

_Feedback is welcomed with open arms._

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><p><strong>Hopeless<strong>

How can you get over someone when you have an eidetic memory?

That's the question Spencer really wants to find the answer for, had been for a longer while... like fucking forever... Okay not forever, precisely nine years, two days, eight hours, seven minutes and... thirty-four, no thirty-five seconds.

Someone really should write a book about it or at the very least an article.

How can you get over someone when you have an eidetic memory?

As far as he knows the answer is: you don't. You just don't, you continue loving them still, loving them because, loving them regardless. You love them because loving them has became your second nature and contemplating getting over someone when you love them so intensely, for so long is like contemplating amputating your limb... all by yourself... with a plastic fork.

Years pass, months fly by, days blend in to copy of one another, hours stretch, minutes punctuate seconds spent at loving them.

You have days when you wish that you never loved them because loving them hurts and it's in human selfish nature to want to be fucking happy. But when you love you learn to be happy when the other is happy. They deserve to be happy, everybody does.

Whomever she is she makes him smile and that's what should matter the most. Sometimes it does, sometimes; because sometimes you wish to be the one who makes him smile. You would have traded everything you own, years of your life for just one day by his side in the world in which he returns your love.

Instead... Instead you sit in this supposedly comfortable chair, for twenty-three minutes now and you are supposed to explain what's wrong.

You don't. You can't.

"Reid?" Hotch asks patiently. "What's wrong? You know that you can tell me everything and I won't judge you."

"I know," Spencer says and it's the first word he said in past twenty-two minutes and thirty-five seconds. "It doesn't make it easier."

"Nothing in this life is easy," Hotch sighs. "What's wrong?" he asks again.

Spencer takes a breath, lets it out and takes another before he sputters finally, "Do you know how can you get over someone when you have an eidetic memory?"

Hotch nods and it's not the nod for confirmation that he knows, he acknowledges the question.

"It's Emily, isn't it?" Hotch asks quietly.

Emily? You've got to be kidding me... Okay he loves Emily, he knows that he loves Emily but he loves her the same way he loves Garcia and still loves JJ. They are older sisters he never had and he would throw himself at a grenade for them but... eww... eww, just eww.

"JJ?" Hotch asks tentatively.

This time Spencer allows himself to express 'are you fucking kidding me' with his raised eyebrows as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"There is only one answer I found," Spencer says finally. "It's not the best answer but the only answer I have and most likely the only answer I will ever have. You don't, you just keep loving them, still, because, regardless... Thomas Moore wrote: Yes, loving is a painful thrill, And not to love more painful still; But oh, it is the worst of pain, To love and not be lov'd again."

"Do you see that person often?" Hotch asks.

"Everyday," Spencer answers with a sigh.

"How long?" Hotch asks pensively.

Spencer doesn't answer, he just shrugs and fiddles with his watch.

"Reid?" Hotch presses.

"Long enough," Spencer says quietly.

"He would understand," Hotch says.

"You really think so?" Spencer asks not daring himself to hope because it had been to fucking long.

"He is your friend and he cares about you," Hotch says. "Granted he will be shocked..."

"He?" Spencer asks cautiously.

"Morgan," Hotch says.

Spencer doesn't know what he wants more, to burst in tears or to burst in hysteric giggles. For an experienced profiler Hotch is really, really dense and Spencer doesn't know why he really bothers. And if it wasn't about him and his feelings the whole thing would be... really cute.

"Dave?" Hotch asks cautiously.

"Can we just stop having this conversation because it's getting more and more pathetic?" Spencer asks sourly. "And now that you are done with blowing remains of my dignity into fine dust can I have it back because I would like to keep some of it?" he sneers.

He stands up, gets to the door, down to the bullpen where he stays just long enough to grab his jacket before he heads to the roof.

On the roof he hunts hidden pack of cigarettes and the lighter, it's an emergency stash experienced agents keep around for the times when everything turns nasty. He lights one of them and takes a shaky breath letting the smoke fill in his lungs. It's a small high, it's calming and he needs to be calm.

He gets through three cigarettes before he is finally calm enough to stop contemplating jumping from the roof.

Hotch didn't follow him. He has his answer.

And he still doesn't know how can you get over someone when you have an eidetic memory.

**The End**

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><p><strong>Feedback is love.<strong>


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